Rating: 2.5/5
Charlotte is a 12-year-old living in an apartment complex owned by her great-aunt Gunter. She lives with her mom, Heather, her mom’s boyfriend, Ethan, and Heather and Ethan’s newborn son.
Ethan is the super for the apartment, and he has his hands full with near-constant repairs and Gunter’s cheap solutions. At night, he works on a comic based on a story by Charlotte.
One day, a rock shoots out of space, through a window, and into the complex. The rock hatches to a spider that Charlotte finds and names Sting after the blade from The Hobbit.
But this isn’t an ordinary spider. For one, it can mimic sounds and whistles. Also, every time it eats, it grows.
The film spends a good chunk of its runtime focused on Charlotte’s family, particularly Ethan’s increased stress and how he fits into the family. Charlotte appears indifferent but has taken up drawing comics like Ethan.
That said, the emotional beats are so by the book that it’s hard to connect to those parts. It spends a lot of time on them, but still not enough to develop characters.
The spider, however, is scary as fuck — they freak me out as it is. So, seeing one that grows to the size of a dog is uncomfortable.
The effects team built a practical spider, and it helped substantially. They use CGI for the more dynamic scenes, which they thankfully don’t rely on too much.
I like the scares. I’m somewhat on board with the family parts, but I’m pretty disappointed with this script. I enjoyed it more than I expected, but this one will slip from my memory soon.